Years ago, when I spent my first “Holy Week Retreat” at the Bishop Molloy Retreat House in Jamaica, Queens, I was especially troubled by the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps because my mother had died recently, I even found little consolation in the joy of the Easter Vigil. It had been a long, sorrowful, sleepless week and I fell into a tired, troubled sleep on that Saturday night after reading the Gospel (Jn 20: 1-2, 11-18) that is read on the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, her experience at the tomb.

    I kept on waking from the same dream. In this dream many of us had fallen into a numb, restless slumber on the floor of the Upper Room. I was one of the women, and I was anxious about getting safely to our Lord’s tomb before daybreak so we could anoint His body. Mary Magdalene kept on waking us during the night but it was still too early.

When I finally woke up in the Retreat House room it was already day and I felt the sadness of being left behind by the others. It was only a dream, but it had felt so real, so urgent. Still half-asleep I imagined Magdalene all alone  ( without me!)  out there in the dark streets of Jerusalem going through an experience like the one described  in the first reading for the Feast:

 “On my bed at night I sought Him whom my heart loves-
  I sought Him but I did not find Him.
 I will rise then and go about the city;
 In the streets and crossings I will seek  Him whom my heart loves.
  I sought Him but I could not find Him. “
                                                                                    ( Song of Songs 3:1-2)

    I imagined her sitting within the dark, empty tomb, weeping hopelessly. In my reverie I share in her grief. It overwhelms me. Outside of the cave, the crimson dawn shines, and a voice asks: “Woman why are you weeping?” Like her, I pour out my bitter grief.  

And then, He calls me by  name. I know that Voice. It is my Beloved, my Rabbouni! It is Easter Sunday! My Lord lives and loves me! I run out and embrace Him with all my might. He hugs me right back, because He loves me so much, before He gently pushes me away and rises to His Father in joy and glory. It is going to be a wonderful day. On that last day of the retreat I would  find relief and hope. Thank you Resurrected Lord!

    Mariam of Magdala, the wonderful disciple, experienced this and so much more. She must have been rejuvenated and re-energized by this sacred experience. Her Beloved tells her, “go to my brothers and tell them.” She is sent to announce to them that Christ is risen. She is sent by Him. That is why she is called the Apostle to the Apostles.

I am so happy that Pope Francis elevated her “memorial” to a “ feast day” in the Church calendar, giving her the same level of celebration as the male apostles. I love and admire her for her courage, her faith, and her wonderful devotion to our Savior. She is such a great example to me. I imagine her in Christ, young, beautiful and strong, a role model that I share with my granddaughters. Her story makes me think of the first two paragraphs of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation to the young, CHRISTUS VIVIT:

    1. “Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way He brings youth to our world, and everything He touches becomes young, new, full of life. The very first words, then, that I would like to    say to every young Christian are these: Christ is alive and He wants you to be alive!
    2. “He is in you, He is with you and He never abandons you. However far you may wonder, He is always there, the Risen One. He calls you and He waits for you to return to Him and start over again. When you feel you are growing old out of sorrow, resentment or fear, doubt or failure, He will always be there to restore your strength and your hope.”

Orlando Hernandez

For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

                                                                                                 

 The Gospel (Mat 13: 1-23)  for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time can be reflected upon in so many ways. There is always something new that a seeker can find in it, if it is the Will of the Sower.    

 We have a small space behind our house. Almost half of it was covered by these tall evergreen bushes that took up so much room. Finally, we convinced ourselves to have them cut. It really hurt. What was left behind looked like part of an abandoned lot, a wasteland, horrible. During this spring of confinement, my wife and I decided to come up with some sort of garden in this backyard. We tried to help the English ivy to come back and cover some of the space. We placed in the middle a bunch of little flowering plants from the grocery store. It was an improvement, but oh, what back-breaking work! There were few rocks there, but these stumps and thick roots made it almost impossible to plant anything new. And the weeds! Some were painfully thorny and hard to remove. The others would spring right back, and in three days they were once more choking the ivy and attacking the flowers. Boy, was it frustrating.   

 Time and again, this situation would remind me of Jesus’ parable of the sower. Farming, and even gardening, are about so much more than just planting. Making that soil receptive is such a challenge. Suddenly, this experience and this parable made me think about the “most important thing” we do as Christians, which is to pray. Our Lord is constantly inviting us to be with Him in prayer. When you believe in Him, His promptings, what St. Paul of the Cross calls “love darts,” fall upon the soil of our hearts like gentle dew, sacred “manna”, seeds that can germinate into the most wondrous moments of intimacy with the Word of God. 

   However, we have all these impediments: “No, no, I don’t have the time. Gotta do this, gotta do that!” And when we finally find the time, all these weeds and stones get in the way: body aches, itchiness, sleepiness, noisy lawn mowers, some young person blasting “ Raggeton”  rap from his car parked out front, and so on. Then, when there is relative comfort and silence outside, there is the noise inside, what Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga calls “this mass of unruly thoughts” choking up our concentration on our God. Then, sometimes, there is that sense of guilt, that sense of unworthiness. It is so easy to just give up, stand up, and walk away from that moment of prayer that just a few moments before we were craving so much.   

 Fortunately, we must not forget Who is the One that longs the most for that encounter. He is the One that gently, somehow, clears our eyes and ears of faith so we can “see and hear.” The ruined, weed-covered yard turns into a fruitful garden, an image of that original Garden of intimacy with the Beloved. He helps us to remove the stumps, the weeds, the thorns, to turn the hard earth. He works with us to create that fruitful place, a soul that longs each day to be more and more like Him. Then we can begin to try, and carry out our Christian mission.

As my friend Matthew, who leads our virtual meetings, says : “Without prayer you can’t do anything.”      Every once in a while I would like to share my favorite prayers with you, dear readers.  These “prayers” are actually promptings, from the writings of very holy people who have helped me to clear out those weeds and be with God.     Enjoy this challenging summer as best as you can, with the help of our God. I hope you appreciate and smell the flowers.  Pray, pray, pray!
Orlando Hernández

The Passionists have always honored Mary, the Mother of Jesus, under the title of Mother of Holy. It was a devotion promoted in a special way by the great missionary, Father Thomas Struzzieri, who later became a bishop. He carried a picture of our Mother of Holy Hope with him on missions. This picture was reproduced in the community as a reminder of Mary’s assistance in our spiritual needs.

 The Blessed Virgin is a model and support of our hope. She remains so. Her feast is celebrated by the community on July 9th.

 “One title that belongs rightly to Mary is that of Mother of Holy Hope.  Hope is that virtue that anchors the ship of our soul in the stormy sea of this troubled world. It is a comfort left to us after the fall of Adam, a support in our weakness encouraging us to practice all the virtues.

 Theologians say hope is a virtue planted in us by God enabling us to confidently expect eternal life and all that leads to it. Since Mary was hopeful to an heroic degree, she is appropriately called Mother of Holy Hope.

Though endowed with extraordinary graces and unstained by original sin, Mary never counted on any resource of her own. Rather, she knew God is the author of every good thing and the source of everything. She confided in God fleeing from persecution from her own country. She hoped in God even when she saw her divine Son die on cross and his disciples left him.

She stayed firm in what seemed like disaster, and strengthened those discouraged who turned to her as to a mother. She encouraged the weak, lifted up the fallen and urged the strong to ever greater trust.

We must not think Mary is not our mother now.  No! Even now, enthroned in glory, she reaches with a mother’s hand to those who go to her. She is always a mother of holy hope.”

Blessed Dominic Barberi. CP

Lord God,

you have given us the Blessed Virgin Mary as mother of our hope.

Under her protection,

may we pass through this uncertain world with our hopes fixed on heaven

and so enter into your kingdom.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.